Mike Nelson's Movie Megacheese

ISBN-10: 0380814676

ISBN-13: 9780380814671

You might think that after ten seasons on the Peabody Award-winning TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000, Mike Nelson has seen enough bad movies for one lifetime. As the guys at Cahiers du Cinema say, au contraire! Hollywood's spigot of stupidity shows no sign of slowing, and cheesy films continue to flood our multiplexes and gunk up our home entertainment centers at an alarming rate. This dire situation calls for a specialist. A professional. An expert in wading through motion pictures so vile that they aren't released; they escape. We need Mike Nelson! Hey, settle down there, pal—you got him!In more than sixty laugh-out-loud reviews and essays featuring his unique combination of erudite wit and shameless clowning, this screenscarred veteran takes us deep into the recesses of cinematic cheese. He examines legendary showbiz families like Culkin, Baldwin, and Estevez; uncovers an ancient quatrain in which Nostradamus foretells the coming of David Hasselhoff; makes the case for the Food Network and the Three Stooges; and skewers all kinds of movies, including Lost in Space, Twister, Anaconda, The Postman, Spring Break, My Best Friend's Wedding, The Bridges of Madison County, The Blair Witch Project, and many, many more. Here is a film critic for the rest of us: the outrageous, hilarious Mike Nelson. E! Online Hilarious...a spray of insightful pop-culture commentary.

Volcano\ I hate to start this thing by nitpicking, believe me, but the movie really should have been called Lava, not Volcano. The film, starring Tommy Lee Jones and Anne Heche, really was long on lava and, as far as I could tell, had only one small — quite small, really — volcano. And, despite all the hype, the coast was not, at any time during the film, toast. The coastal city of Los Angeles, California was indeed in no small danger of being incinerated by flowing magma, but the situation was competently handled by disaster workers, and only the most pessimistic naysayer would describe the situation by saying, rather unhelpfully, "The coast is toast."\ You may accuse me of being rather picayune, but when a film endlessly hypes — on television, radio, the sides of buses, billboards, drink mugs, cheese-erito wrappers, Fruit Roll-Up packages, the underside of dirigibles, and family-size toilet tissue packs — that "The Coast Is Toast!," I expect to see the entire coast — say, from Long Beach to Oakland — and every one of its millions of inhabitants incinerated into unrecognizable char. Do not misunderstand me. I don't actually have a desire to see that; I just want my expectations managed with more integrity.\ In the first act of Volcano: The Film That Shamefully Misrepresents Its Content, we learn that Stan Olber, head of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, and Mike Roark (Tommy Lee Jones), head of the Office of Emergency Management, have trouble cooperating when their respective jurisdictions overlap. If that plotline doesn't get your blood boiling, then perhaps the story of the seismologist who isreluctant to be interviewed on camera will. I understand they cut the scene in which the City Registrar collated taxpayer information because it was too graphic.\ Things pick up when seven transit workers are burned to death right near the La Brea Tar Pits. Actually anyone who's been talked into driving more than a mile to see the La Brea Tar Pits has indeed been burned, badly. There's not much to see, and parking is hardly convenient. Anyway, seismologist Dr. Amy Barnes (Anne Heche) is brought in to investigate the incident, and she soon warns the shar-pei-faced Tommy Lee that the titular volcano may be forming under their feet. Then the movie pretty much follows the plot of Earthquake (in Sensurround), and you half-expect to see George Kennedy yelling at Lloyd Nolan, or Richard Roundtree hanging with Marjoe Gortner.\ There's some good special effects as the lava flows down Wilshire Boulevard, burning up all the Koo Koo Roo's, Carl's Jr., In and Out Burgers, Jack in the Box, El Pollo Loco, and all those other chain restaurants with the incredibly stupid names that L.A. seems to love so much.\ And just what does Carl's Jr. mean? Carl's Junior ... what? Carl's burger is junior? Or is it referring to persons younger than Carl? If Carl's restaurant is junior, then there'd need to be a larger restaurant named "Carl's Sr." to put it in the proper context, and there is no "Carl's Sr " Again, nitpicking, perhaps, but you just can't go around naming things nonsensically and expecting everyone to buy into it. If I named my store "Clean White Cotton Underpants," and then you came in and discovered I sold nothing but custom kitchen cabinets, you'd be upset, and you'd have every right to be! Or if I called my restaurant "Phil's Double," and then just left it at that, with no explanation, I'd be hurting a lot of people. That's how I feel about "Carl's Jr." I'm hurt and angry.\ As for Volcano, I was neither hurt nor angered by it. I liked it. Perhaps I was drunk on nitrates from all the luncheon meat I had had that day, or perhaps the botanicals in my wife's hair products that I accidentally used made me susceptible to corny scripts, but I found it pretty entertaining. It was kind of like an old war movie — really cornball, but with a heart. It's not my favorite movie ever (that would be Heartbeeps), but it's a decent stupid disaster movie delivery system.\ My fear is that its success will lead to more films with clever tag lines, like, say, for a film about a rocket aimed at a town in New York called Buffalo Shot, the tag line would be, "Watch Upstate Go Down." Hmmm, that's not very good. Okay, the movie depicts a horrible avalanche in Denver. It's called Snowball's Chance, and the line reads, "Colorado, Rocky Mountain DIE." Ew. That's terrible. Try a film about a paramilitary group taking over a Missouri landmark called Arch Nemeses. The poster would read, "St. Louie Is Kablooie."\ Oh, I like that. I've got to call Casey at Universal and get this baby on the fast track.

IntroductionxiPart 1Annnnd...Action!1Part 2Wild Thangs51Part 3Teevee87Part 4Science Friction121Part 5The Five Families (Plus Two)145Part 6Chik Flix175Part 7The Legends213Part 8Very Odds 'N' Ends243Part 9Mega-Megacheese279

\ From Barnes & NobleIf you've ever laughed with abandon during a drama or winced with pain while sitting through a comedy, Mike Nelson is your man and Mike Nelson's Movie Megacheese is the book for you. And don't miss Mike Nelson's 10-Step Cine-Fest in our Video & DVD Store.\ \ \ \ \ Associated PressHilarious!\ \ \ CinescapeHilarious...the book more than lives up to its uproarious promise.\ \ \ \ \ Decatur DailyNelson's writing is sharp and clever...a must for all of us who love bad movies simply for their sheer badness.\ \ \ \ \ E! OnlineHilarious...a spray of insightful pop-culture commentary.\ \ \ \ \ E! OnlineHilarious...a spray of insightful pop-culture commentary.\ \ \ \ \ Entertainment WeeklyCineasts who love film slumming will eat this up.\ \ \ \ \ Illinois EntertainerNelson is funny and on the mark throughout.\ \ \ \ \ Leonard MaltinMike Nelson just might put some 'legitimate' film critics out of work! His writing is both film-savvy and very, very funny.\ \ \ \ \ Minneapolis Star-TribuneSnort-out-loud funny...sure to make the cheeks of many a Hollywood mogul blaze with shame, provided somebody reads it to them.\ \ \ \ \ Richard SchickelMike Nelson has a hopeful taste for hopeless movies. He writes about his endless disappointment with them the way most people think about them, with shrewd, genial, populist contempt. I love the way he mixes up his responses to non-art with the non-life he pretends to be living. He's more fun than a barrel of Val Kilmers, smarter than a roomful of Patrick Swayzes, and almost as hilarious as Keanu Reeves.\ \ \ \ \ TimeFunny...in the land of suckitude, Mike Nelson is king.\ \